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Brangelina Skipping the Golden Globes

1/12/2010 12:16:00 PM kenmouse , Posted in , , , , , 0 Comments

Golden Globes presenter Jennifer Aniston can breathe easy—there will be no showdown between her, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at this year's awards show.

Angie's stylist, Jen Rade, broke the tragic news to us—Brangelina is sitting out the red carpet!—at last night's Audi party.

Brad's manager also confirmed this morning that he won't attend, although his movie Inglorious Basterds is nominated for an award.

But wait...

Brad and Quentin Tarantino are BFFs! You'd think they'd show up for support?

Unless the golden couple is trying to avoid a redux of last year's Oscars, when Jen presented and they were seated directly in front of her?

Or maybe Angie's just busy working on Salt reshoots in NYC and taking her adorable brood to Broadway shows?

The couple may be "over" Hollywood, but we're not over them. Hope to see you two for Oscars!

Microsoft adds Office, Windows rental option

1/12/2010 12:16:00 PM kenmouse , Posted in , , , 0 Comments

Although there are plenty of places that rent out time on Windows-based computers, doing so had never been strictly, speaking, legitimate.


The licensing terms for Windows (and Office) prohibit such use even though there are thousands of Internet cafes, business centers, and kiosks that do so. Starting January 1, though, Microsoft added an option for those that wish to rent out Windows or Office to do so by paying an extra fee.

"Windows desktop operating system and Microsoft Office system licenses do not permit renting, leasing, or outsourcing the software to a third party," Microsoft notes on its Web site. "As a result, many organizations that rent, lease, or outsource desktop PCs to third parties (such as Internet cafes, hotel and airport kiosks, business service centers, and office equipment leasing companies) are not compliant with Microsoft license requirements."

The new "rental rights" option adds a waiver of the licensing terms, allowing such use in exchange for a one-time license fee for each Windows PC or Office copy being rented out.

"Rental Rights are a simple way for organizations to get a waiver of these licensing restrictions through a one-time license transaction valid for the term of the underlying software license or life of the PC," Microsoft said.

In an effort to boost initial sales of the option, and perhaps ease the burden of having to pay for something that many organizations were doing for free, Microsoft is offering 30 percent off the license fees for those that sign up by June 30.

News of the new option was reported earlier on Monday by, among others, ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley.

Foley quotes Directions on Microsoft analyst Paul DeGroot as saying that the rental add-on for Office Professional, with the discounts, is $58, while Office Standard costs $45, and Windows is $23. Those are one-time fees good for the life of the PC or underlying Office license and are in addition to the cost of the copy of Office or Windows itself.

Update: I had a chance to catch up with DeGroot and get some additional thoughts on Microsoft's move.

Until Microsoft added this option, DeGroot said, Microsoft really only had the option of threatening to shut down a business or potentially pushing rental businesses toward Linux and OpenOffice.

Plus, he said, kiosks and business centers serve an important role for business people and consumers.

"One of the problems with enforcing this was there wasn't an easy way for people to do this, yet it is incredibly useful," DeGroot said. "As a result I think Microsoft kind of tolerated this."

DeGroot said the new option stemmed from Microsoft's antipiracy efforts in emerging markets, where much of the focus was to keep such places from using pirated copies of Windows and Office. Technically though, even buying legit Office and Windows still wasn't making customers legal. With the rental option, Microsoft has a way, particularly in mature markets, to allow such businesses to be legitimate.

The discount and the fact that the fee is one-time and not an annual bill, could help ease the cost of the rental license. "They are not all that expensive," DeGroot said, noting the fees are less than the cost of the original software.

One of the key questions is that, now that it has such an option, how aggressive will Microsoft be in making sure business centers and cafes are actually paying the extra fee.

"I think that you may see more enforcement," DeGroot said, but added the company may still ignore smaller infractions.

HTC admits customers have Nexus One 3G trouble, not yet blaming the phone

1/12/2010 12:15:00 PM kenmouse , Posted in , , , , 0 Comments

If samples from customer support threads are an accurate indicator, hundreds and perhaps thousands of early adopters of Google's Nexus One phone aren't looking for humanity from some pinstripe or tapered edges, so much as from customer support.

A spokesperson for HTC, the manufacturer of the Nexus One phone sold by Google and deployed thus far on T-Mobile's GSM network, told Betanews late Monday evening that it is aware of the magnitude of 3G connectivity problems reported by customers nationwide since last week. As of Monday evening, several hundred messages were posted to Google's support Web site, many reporting essentially the same problem: For the most part, their 3G connections are spotty and variable; and for some, 3G is non-existent.

Contrary to reports, however, HTC is not acknowledging a problem with the phone. As of now, the T-Mobile network remains equally suspect, especially amid the complete lack of much news whatsoever, including to its customers, from Google.

"While the majority of Nexus One owners have been thrilled with their experience, HTC is aware that some owners have reported having some technical issues with their Nexus One devices," the spokesperson told Betanews. HTC, Google, and T-Mobile take all such reports very seriously, and are working closely together to determine what issues may be behind these reports."

Late Monday morning, T-Mobile's customer support site did include a thread started by support personnel, who appeared to be actively interested in collecting information on the problem. "Let's see what we can learn about this," the thread began. "Maybe we can uncover some commonalities among those experiencing issues."

But although blogs today reported that this thread was an admission of problems with T-Mobile's network, actually, T-Mobile made no such admission. It merely acknowledged the issue and its personnel (unlike Google's) are interacting with customers in search of a resolution.

Customers who did manage to get through to HTC support personnel report having been told that a software patch of some sort is in the works; some who received that message last week were told they would receive a patch as soon as today. It does not appear certain that such a patch, if it exists, specifically addresses this problem.

All that Google will say on the subject is as follows: "We are investigating this issue and hope to have more information for you soon. We understand your concern and appreciate your patience."

Nexus One is far from the first smartphone with 3G problems in the early going. The first US-based Apple iPhone 3G models were plagued with network trouble initially, as was the BlackBerry Bold 9000 -- both on the AT&T network. Early troubles with the BlackBerry Storm on the Verizon Wireless network were traced back to the phone.

Some information from Nexus One early adopters tends to point toward the network, not the phone, as the possible culprit. One fellow reports having swapped SIM cards with a friend with an iPhone, and immediately receiving faster 2G EDGE service from AT&T on Nexus One than 3G service from T-Mobile. Another customer who also owns a T-Mobile G1 noted similar 3G connectivity problems on both the G1 and the Nexus One, since last Tuesday when Nexus One was launched.

One story indicative not only of customers' problems but of their bewilderment over the lack of an obvious solution, comes from user scotty1024, who works in Redmond, Washington, just blocks from the Microsoft campus. "This morning I went into a conference room and no one else had shown up yet so I killed time in the Amazon MP3 store. The phone kept telling me it lost connection and to press here to retry. You'd retry and it would flip to Edge and I was able to pull up lists of titles. But about 2 minutes later it would flip back into non-working 3G and kill the connection. Spin, wash, repeat."

One would think, scotty1024 goes on, that the phone would be smart enough to route calls via Wi-Fi using Google Voice when 3G service goes dead.

2PM releases new single Tik Tok

1/12/2010 12:15:00 PM kenmouse , Posted in , , 0 Comments



One of the biggest success stories of 2009 has got to be the boys of 2PM. Not many can pull off a trio of hits like they did with Again & Again, I Hate You and Heartbeat. And just before their promotions end, they present us with yet another single titled Tik Tok.

Composed by Tommy Park, Tik Tok is a song that expresses the secretive love of 2PM. JYP did promise that 2PM would be going for a new unique concept for their next album; could this be it? One thing for sure is that this song smells of another hit.



They’ll be putting on their last live performance on the 17th but don’t worry, they won’t be out of the limelight for too long as their next album will be coming out in April, so stay tuned!

Sakurai Sho Talks About the Great Hanshin Earthquake

1/12/2010 12:15:00 PM kenmouse , Posted in , , , 0 Comments

On the 11th, Arashi's Sakurai Sho (27) appeared at the preview event for his Fuji Television special drama "Hanshin・Awaji Daishinsai Kara 15 Nen: Kobe Shimbun no Nanokakan~Hisaichi ni Ikita Kishatachi no Tatakai~" which airs on Saturday January 16th at 9:00pm. In the docudrama, employees at Kobe Shimbun must confront the crisis they are faced with during the aftermath of the earthquake. While the office building housing the newspaper suffered damages, they are determined to keep the paper running. Sakurai plays the role of a photographer who has been working at the newspaper for the past four years.

Sakurai is very grateful for the chance to play this role, "There was a sense of fear that was unearthed [from the victim's feelings]. Afterwards, there was also the Sarin Incident that occurred. The coverage of the Sarin Incident overshadowed the earthquake, so there was a side of the earthquake disaster that was never brought to light. I'm happy for the chance to uncover [the reality of the situation]." Playing his colleague, a new photographer, Fukiishi Kazue (27) was in Nara at the time of the earthquake and recalls being awakened by the tremors. "I still remember it. When I went to where my mother and brothers were, I could feel the place shaking."

+++
Note: The Great Hanshin earthquake occured on January 17, 1995. The Subway Sarin Incident occured two months later on March 20, 1995. This act of domestic terrorism killed twelve people when sarin gas was released on the subway. (Information from wiki)

ASUS UL80JT spotted with automatic switchable graphics, brags 12 hour battery life

1/12/2010 12:14:00 PM kenmouse , Posted in , , 0 Comments



How we missed this at the ASUS booth is beyond us, but leave it to the eagle-eyes at Ars to hone in on the ASUS UL80JT with an overclockable Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce 310 graphics. So it's just a run-of-the-mill gaming rig, right? Wrong. The 14-inch laptop has switchable graphics like we have never seen before; the laptop automatically switches, "second-by-second" between the NVIDIA card and the integrated Intel one, instead of the "standard" switchable graphics we've seen on laptops like the MacBook Pro 15 or ASUS UL80Vt which require users to switch manually. The major foreseeable benefit of this is longer battery life even when the system is using the discrete card, and ASUS touts 12 hours with the automatic solution turned on. No word on price or availability, but we're guessing ASUS will have more details soon and that we'll start seeing this this in more and more laptops as NVIDIA spreads the love around to the rest of the industry.

We jumped the gun here, we've actually seen this new automatic switching technology in the recently announced Sony Vaio Z.

Are slates going hurt Microsoft's bottom line any more than netbooks?

1/12/2010 12:14:00 PM kenmouse , Posted in , , , , 0 Comments

Are all slates tablets? Are all tablets netbooks? Does the distinction between slates, tablets, netbooks, smartbooks and e-readers matter to anyone — or do anything beyond confuse customers more than they are already)?

The real question in all this, for Microsoft watcher, customers and partners, is whether slates will ding the profits of the Windows client business any more or less than netbooks have.

As Microsoft officials make sure to point out, netbooks can run any version of Windows 7. So can the soon-to-be-released slates from HP, Pegatron, Archos and other Microsoft partners, I’d assume. (Microsoft officials said last week the HP slate that Ballmer showed, but which seemed to be non-existent at the show, was running Windows 7, and will include a customized interface created by HP.)

It’s up to PC makers which version of Windows 7 they preload on new machines and devices. Many netbooks are preloading the cheapest, lowest end version of Windows 7, Starter Edition. Microsoft gets less per copy for Starter from its OEMs than it does for Premium or Ultimate or any of the other SKUs. (It’s unclear exactly how much less.)

Netbooks have been a double-edged sword for Microsoft. The robust sales of netbooks helped keep the bottom from completely falling out of the Windows business in 2009. But the growth of netbooks also cut into Windows’ profits. Microsoft ended up offering Windows XP to netbook makers at the firesale price of about $15 per copy, according to many estimates, in part to convince PC makers not to preload Linux on those machines. Microsoft’s argument: Even though Linux, at $0 per copy, is cheaper than Windows at $15 per copy, there will be far fewer support calls from customers accustomed to Windows than those unfamiliar with Linux. And there are a lot more Windows apps than netbook apps. So why not just go with Windows?

What’s going to happen with slates, the multi-touch-optimized successors to the stylus/digital-ink-dependent tablet PCs? Will Microsoft have to cut the price of Windows 7 that it offers PC makers so as to keep them from doing a Dell, which provided a quick glimpse of an Android-based, 5-inch handheld at CES? Or from coming out with a Chrome OS/ARM-based slate later in 2010? Competition is good for Microsoft’s partners: It provides them with a new bargaining chip to be used when negotiating the price per copy of Windows with Microsoft.

On the TechFlash blog last week, Todd Bishop quizzed Tammi Reller, the Chief Financial Officer of Microsoft’s Windows and Windows Live business unit, about the potential impact of slates. Not surprisingly, Reller said Microsoft is envisioning slates the same way it does netbooks: As a PC companion, not a replacement.

While the “companion not a replacement” motto is a good one for Microsoft, I’m not sure it reflects reality. For some consumers, netbooks are a second or third PC; for many who bought the devices at the holidays, netbooks were purchased as a replacement for aging desktop/laptop PCs. If slates are nothing more than fancy e-readers that can also play music, they might be supplemental. But if they are full-fledged computing devices (as the rumored Apple iSlate supposedly is), with souped-up media-consumption capabilities, they may become PC replacements.

What’s your prediction? Will the new class of slates/tablets or whatever you call them help or hurt Microsoft, in terms of Windows revenues/sales?

Tila Tequila Twitter Ticker: Possible Pregnancy Ahead!

1/12/2010 12:13:00 PM kenmouse , Posted in , , 0 Comments

Breaking, almost definitely made-up news: Tila Tequila is pregnant!



In her latest stream of Tweets - which follow last night's God-based barrage - Tila claims she is taking the high road; that haters are pissing off the Almighty; and hints strongly that she has a bun in her warped oven.

Like Tina Fey impersonating Sarah Palin, the most damning, hilarious evidence of Tequila's publicity-inspired madness is simply to list her Twitter messages word-for-word. Shake your head over them (listed from latest to oldest, all within an hour) below...
  • Thank u everyone for your kind words. I am off to bedrest again now. I have let go of all anger inside of me. It feels so good! TTYL! xoxo
  • My Wife has passed away and all I have left is the baby. I wish mean people can just respect the dead and respect a new life growing inside!
  • The doctor i visited says that all this stress and negative people around me getting me upset, can affect the baby in a bad way. Pls stop.
  • Yes I promised myself and my wifey that we WILL NOT discuss anymore thing about this. SO with that said. I have AMAZING NEWS 2 SHARE W/U!!!
  • I just want to go back to the way things were. Let me mourn my wife in private. I want to talk about the FUN things that I wanted 2 tell u!
  • As for me, I am so tired. I have no energy to defend my wife anymore. I faint, Im tired & this is not good for my baby. Leave us alone pleas
  • & for the haters. Please stop. Enough with this vile vindictive behavior. Respect my Wife please. She is dead. Let her rest in peace please!
  • My only wish is 4 all the negative people to leave me alone please. I dnt want to talk to media, I dnt want 2 deal w/haters. Leave me alone.
  • I love my wife and will always forever. I'm not doing a press tour like those other people "AHEM" we know who they are. Gross! Whatever.
  • Those disgusting people who talk shit about my wife are upsetting God right now, and that is who she's with. I'm taking the high road now.

Eva Mendes For Calvin Klein Jeans S/S 2010

1/12/2010 12:13:00 PM kenmouse , Posted in , , 0 Comments





Get ready for Calvin Klein’s latest soon-to-be banned campaign: Eva Mendes is baring all for Calvin Klein Jeans — again. The highly-steamy ads for the brand’s Spring/Summer 2010 collection feature a topless Eva frolicking in the sand with cK newcomer Jamie Dornan!



Google News Pulls The AP’s Content As Contract Comes Up For Renewal

1/12/2010 12:12:00 PM kenmouse , Posted in , , , 0 Comments



Through much of last year, the Associated Press threw public barbs and veiled threats at Google, while in private it was renegotiating its licensing agreement with Google News. That agreement is believed to be up for renewal at the end of this month, yet no new AP stories have appeared directly on Google News since December 23, 2009. (AP stories licensed by other news sites such as ABC News or the New York Times do continue to appear, however). So what’s going on here? Is that the end of AP stories on Google News?

I’ve been doing some sniffing around, and it is not the AP that is withholding its content. This conclusion is also supported by the fact that older AP content from before Christmas continues to be available on Google News. If the AP were no longer licensing its articles to Google, those older articles likely would also no longer be available. (The AP has talked about withholding news from certain licensees for a set period of time, but those were measured in minutes and hours, not weeks, and it would operate on a rolling basis. The AP stories on Google News just stop on December 23).

So it appears that Google made a unilateral decision. What’s going on here reminds me of what News Corp does to Time Warner Cable every four years or so when the contract for all the Fox television channels comes up. Fox threatens to pull its channels in a very public manner, and then at the eleventh hour a deal is struck, just like what happened on New Year’s. Google is trying its own Foxy negotiating tactic here. It is showing the AP in a very visible way what will happen if Google News no longer carries AP stories, and they are doing this before the negotiations are up so that the AP can measure the loss in readership that Google News brings.

In the TV world, it’s the content companies such as Fox, which have the negotiating leverage because they bring the audience. It almost seems like Google is trying to prove the opposite is true with online news: that distribution is king, not content. Meanwhile, on Friday, Google News gussied up its home page by adding its Fast Flip project at the bottom (see screenshot below), and is highlighting other newspaper partners with its “Living Stories” project. Whether or not we ever see AP headlines on Google News again depends on which one needs the other one more, and who concedes first in the negotiations.

Which would you rather live without, Google News or the AP?

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